“The new surge in oil purchases is driven by investor confidence that this week [US President Donald] Trump will decide to withdraw from Iran's nuclear program and impose new sanctions on a major OPEC exporter,” GLOBAL FX analyst Sergey Kostenko said in an e-mail to RT.

Iran once again became a major oil exporter in 2016 after international sanctions were gradually lifted. If the US is scrapping the deal, the oil market could lose Iranian exports, and prices could rise with the fall in supply.